FPSF 2014 Schedule and App Now Live (Plus, Some Cancellations…)

Yes, yes, yes, yes. The kind folks who run the Free Press Summer Festival popped up today, less than a month before this year’s festival kicks off (Saturday, May 31st, & Sunday, June 1st), to release two very, very awesome things: the official schedule for the festival and the mobile app for the festival.

The first is excellent to see, of course, because now all those heatstroke-anticipating festival-goers can actually schedule their day. I’m more psyched, though, to see the FPSF-ers updating the mobile app they debuted last year. I found the app massively useful last time around, I have to say, especially with the timetable-format schedule within the app, where I could easily see what was going on right freaking then at any stage throughout the festival; that helped me make quick decisions as to where I needed to hustle on over to, without having to futz around with a paper schedule or remembering beforehand to print out my own customized schedule (which I didn’t do one year, and I ended up having to take a photo of a schedule at the fest and squint at it the whole damn day).

The map isn’t yet functional, unfortunately, but that was damn handy last year, as well (as was the solar system method of stage-naming, which I liked a whole hell of a lot and which they appear to be sticking with this year). I’m liking the social media integration, too; not only can you see any Twitter/Facebook/Instagram posts on FPSF, but it looks like you can post directly from there, without having to jump over to some other app. When it comes to apps, I’m all about having everything in one place.

Oh, and a little Pro Tip for those iPhone users who downloaded last year’s app: if you deleted the app after last year’s FPSF, like I did, reinstalling the app from the App Store will get you back the old app. What you have to do is reinstall the app, then update it to the latest version. That had me confused for a few minutes, so I figured I’d share…

Now for the Bad News: while scanning through the schedule, I realized that there were some names missing. Here’s who was on the original list who I’m not seeing on the lineup any longer:

• The 1975
• Sky Ferreira
• Syd Arthur
• Benjamin Booker
• Feathers
• Beat King

(I almost put DJ Fredster on this list, as well, since he’s nowhere in the actual schedule, but I think that’s an oversight on somebody’s part, because he is still listed in the overall lineup. None of the folks above are.)

It’s not totally unexpected, of course — with any long-planned festival thing like this, some people are going to fall off the schedule — but I will admit to being pretty bummed, especially about The 1975, who I missed seeing twice last year, both here at home and while on vacation in London, and about Syd Arthur, who fellow SCR staffer Jason Smith had raved about a while back. Dangit.

Overall, though, it still looks like a pretty damn good lineup, and they’ve added some new folks, like Sylvan Esso, Twin Shadow, and the jaw-dropping “Welcome to Houston” supergroup (which includes Bun B, Slim Thug, Devin the Dude, Z-Ro, Paul Wall, and Mike Jones, and dammit, my brain just exploded again while typing that), so it all kinda-sorta balances out, right? Whatever happens, I know I’m psyched. Keep your eyes open for the annual randomly-selected previews, which will be kicking off very soon…